The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams - Book Report/Review Example

One may psychoanalyze a particular character within a literary work, but it is usually assumed that all such characters are projections of the author's psyche." (Delahoyde) Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie offers one of the most effective illustrations of psychoanalytic criticism and a reflective analysis of the play confirms that it replicates the author's secret unconscious desires and anxieties or the psyche. The play is narrated entirely from the viewpoint of Tom who can be comprehended as a representative of the author Tennessee Williams.

In The Glass Menagerie, the protagonist Tom Wingfield largely rationalizes his neglect of his sister Laura Wingfield and the guilt he feels at being unable to help her, and here the protagonist of the play represents the author himself. Therefore, in a psychoanalytic reading of the play The Glass Menagerie, it becomes lucid and important that the specific character of Tom is the best projection of the author's psyche or his secret unconscious aspects of the mind. Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie has been comprehended as a literary work that describes various autobiographical elements of the author and it is accounted to be an autobiographical play depicting the life of the author through the character of Tom.

Though one may find several autobiographical elements in other writings by Williams, this play more closely represents and depicts the author's life than any other works by him. Thus, the protagonist Tom Wingfield represents Williams, whose was actual name was Thomas, Amanda Wingfield stands for the author's own mother, and his mentally challenged sister Rose is represented by Laura Wingfield who is known in the nickname of Blue Roses in the play. That is to say, a careful reader of the play can trace several instances of autobiographical elements that prove to be essential to the success of the play.

Therefore, the play The Glass Menagerie can be realized as a literary biography of Tennessee Williams which gives a clear picture of the life of the author. Significantly, "literary biographies are superior to the biographies of, for example, painters or sculptors because biographers (at least, in terms of our familiar conception of them) cannot paint or sculpt their subjects; but if their subjects are literary, biographer and subject are automatically working with a common entity: language. This does not mean that biographers and their subjects need to employ the same genre - if the literary biographer is writing about a novelist, the biography has to resemble that of a novel; if a dramatist, the biography has to resemble that of a play et cetera.

" (Pagan, 17-8) In fact, the literary language is so wonderful that it will automatically find its way into the literary biography and elevate it above the biographies. Therefore, the literary language of the play The Glass Menagerie suggests the superiority of the literary biography of Tennessee Williams which is represented through the characters of the play. The autobiographical elements in the play The Glass Menagerie are important to the understanding of the play in essence and these aspects of the play also suggest the reasons behind the creation of the play.